The present invention relates to a process of processing textile belts for improving the abrasion resistance thereof.
Hitherto, improvement in the abrasion resistance of textile belts has been made generally by immersing the textile belts in an emulsion of a resin such as polyacrylic acid esters, polyvinyl acetate or polyurethane, or a methylolmelamine resin. However, such a method has problems in the abrasion resistance, workability, hand touchness and so on of the treated textile belts, as mentioned below. When a textile belt is treated with the resin emulsion, the permeation of the resin into the textile belt is insufficient and accordingly most of the resin applied tends to remain in the surface region of the belt, thus resulting in a decrease of the flexibility that the belt essentially has. When such a textile belt whose flexibility is impaired, is drawn, the tensile force is not distributed to individual belt-constituting filaments, and consequentially, the breaking strength of the belt is decreased. Furthermore, such a textile belt cannot be retain its original shape and undergoes wavy deformation after a certain number of abrasions, so that it is expected that a much more marked decrease in abrasion resistance will result. On the other hand, use of a methylolmelamine resin has the disadvantage that the belt becomes hard in touchness. Also, the above-mentioned surface-adhering resin or such a hard resin as a methylolmelamine resin is frequently accompanied by occurrence of chalk marks.
From the workability viewpoint, there is the risk of gum-up during the step of subjecting the emulsion resin-impregnated textile belt to squeezing by rolls. There is also a tendency of a large amount of gum-like resin adhering to guide rollers within a drying box and rendering prolonged continuous processing difficult. In such a case, the resin gummed up by the squeeze rolls and the resin sticking to the guide rollers will subsequently cause fuzzing, and consequently, the abrasion resistance is markedly decreased.
It is an object of the present invention to eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks of a conventional process for improving the abrasion resistance of textile belts.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a process for improving the abrasion resistance of textile belts which is applicable to any textile belts regardless of their textile materials.
These and other objects of the present invention will become apparent from the description hereinafter.